it at Lincoln and called on the company to admire. It consisted of
three large mock water-lilies on a little mat of muslin, and was
perched on her piled hair so high aloft that their gaze, as they
scanned it, seemed to pass far over her head. She longed to tear it
down, cast it on the floor, and be the Sukey they knew.

The plate of cake and biscuits on the table gave the parlour a last
funereal touch. Dick was boisterously talkative. The others
scarcely spoke. At length Hetty, who had been struggling to swallow
a biscuit, and well-nigh choking over it, rose abruptly, kissed her
mother, and went straight to her father's room.

He sat at his writing-table, busy as usual with his commentary upon
the Book of Job. At another table by the window Johnny Whitelamb
bent over a map, with his back to the light. He glanced up as she
entered: she could not well read his eyes for the shadow, and perhaps
for some dimness in her own: but he rose, gathered his papers
together, and slipped from the room.

"Papa, Dick Ellison is in the parlour."

"So my ears inform me."

"He wishes to see you."

"Then you may take him my compliments and assure him that he will
not."

"But, papa, the gig is at the door. I have come to say good-bye."